Dec 18, 2012

North Korea - The North Korea Problem

Pyongyang has successfully tested a long-range rocket. What may happen
next -- including missiles someday armed with nuclear warheads -- could make
matters worse.

After announcing that its rocket
was facing technical difficulties that might delay its impending test, North
Korea surprised the international community by abruptly launching a three-stage
rocket on Wednesday morning local time. Even more surprising than the timing
was that the “Unha” (the Korean word for “galaxy”) rocket appears to have
successfully placed the Kwangmyongsong-3 (“Shining Star-3”) satellite into
orbit, albeit there are reports that it is encountering difficulties.

But space enthusiasts have
nothing to cheer. Under the guise of developing a space launch vehicle, the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is pursuing an
intercontinental-range missile (ICBM) capability that would allow it reach
targets as far away as California and Alaska.
Long-range rockets designed as space delivery vehicles and long-range
ballistic missiles intended to carry warheads use similar engines, boosters,
and other technologies, though a satellite can be made lighter than a nuclear
warhead, which needs a dense heat shield to withstand the high temperatures
encountered in reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The Kwangmyongsong-3 weighs
an estimated 100 kilograms, whereas a typical nuclear warhead weighs ten times
more, though a good designer can make them far smaller and therefore
lighter.

This was the fifth time the DPRK
test launched a three-stage long-range missile potentially designed to reach
the continental United States. Although the first four rocket tests failed,
this most recent one has unexpectedly succeeded. The DPRK’s Taepodong
(DPRK-named as Paektusan) long-range missiles use essentially the same
technology as Unha and Paektusan rockets. The three-stage variants of these
missiles have a potential range of perhaps 6,000-10,000 kilometers depending on
the size of the payload it’s carrying, making it potentially sufficient to
reach the western continental United States, which is roughly 9,000 km from
North Korea.

The second rocket launch this
year is yet another sign that the new generation of leaders in Pyongyang, led
by Kim Jong-un, who assumed office last December, have not fundamentally
departed from Kim Jong-il’s foreign and defense policies. In fact, DPRK
propaganda has used the rocket test to glorify the achievements of the Kim
dynasty. The DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that, "At a
time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole
country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to
launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the
100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung," a reference to North
Korea's first leader and Kim Jong-un's grandfather. The launch also
commemorates the first anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s death, and more than
compensates for the embarrassment Kim Jong-un suffered when the test in April
proved to be a spectacular failure.

The latest test may be designed
to influence the leadership changes that are occurring in China, Japan, and
South Korea, with the latter two countries holding elections later this month.
The successful test also places Pyongyang in a better negotiating position with
its neighbors by bolstering its claim to having obtained a nuclear deterrent.

Although it remains a fair degree
away from fielding a reliable nuclear deterrent, North Korea has repeatedly
demonstrated that it is willing to pay dearly to acquire one. Last April’s test
came at the cost of losing the conditional food aid the U.S. had pledged as
part of a deal reached with Pyongyang in February of this year. The DPRK’s
ballistic missile tests in 2006 and 2009 were similarly costly, resulting in UN
Security Council sanctions being imposed on the country.

The DPRK responded both occasions
with aggressive rhetoric and by testing a nuclear explosive, something many
fear it is preparing to do again. The upsurge in tensions in 2009 also saw
North Korea withdraw from the Six-Party Talks then underway between China,
Japan, Russia, North and South Korea, and the United States. They have yet to
resume.

Although the Six-Party-Talks do
not address the DPRK’s missile capabilities directly, any enduring solution to
the DPRK proliferation problem will require stringent constraints on the
North’s missile activities. North Korea uses its missiles to enhance its own
strike capabilities, compensate for its weak air force, and acquire hard
currency by selling its weaponry on the open market. Although internal
political and bureaucratic factors may be driving such a quest, the DPRK would
also like the means to threaten the U.S. homeland to deter the United States
from using force against it. Since its
longer-range missiles are inaccurate, the DPRK wants to arm them with nuclear
rather than much less-powerful conventional warheads.

As noted above, the DPRK has yet
to demonstrate that it has manufactured a functional nuclear warhead that can
fly long distances safely atop a ballistic missile and reenter the earth’s
atmosphere with sufficient safety and accuracy. The North’s two previous tests
of a nuclear explosive device were not seen as entirely successful, perhaps due
to faults in the design of the warhead. The process of miniaturizing even a
functioning nuclear weapon to place it inside a warhead is complex since it has
to be able to withstand the tremendous heat that it encounters during launch
and reentry. For example, a more accurate ICBM with a high ballistic
coefficient would have to endure temperatures of around 2,000 degrees Celsius
when reentering the atmosphere.

How long it will take the DPRK to
do this depends on whether North Korea has been able to obtain one of the
designs for tested warheads that the A. Q. Khan illicit trafficking network was
selling on the black market, which would likely accelerate its progress. The
DPRK reportedly obtained designs for centrifuges for enriching uranium from the
Khan network. Another question is how much nuclear- and missile-related assistance
the DPRK has and will receive from other foreign countries, especially China.
The DPRK leadership would also want to convince others that the warhead and
missiles could work as designed, which would require more successful nuclear
warhead and ballistic missile tests.

Nonetheless, such tasks are not
especially difficult if the DPRK is given enough time and additional
opportunities for long-range missile testing. North Korea has already tested
two nuclear explosive devices and, in view of its estimated past production of
plutonium, likely possesses several nuclear weapons. It also is developing the
capacity to enrich its large indigenous stocks of natural uranium into a
nuclear warhead. The DPRK’s related research and development efforts focus on
making warheads sufficiently small and secure that they can carry a nuclear
weapon or other dangerous agents on North Korea’s ballistic missiles.

The question is how the U.S. and
its allies can prevent North Korea from succeeding in this quest. One
difficulty in addressing the North Korean threat is getting Russia and China to
go along with more strident policy measures. Beijing and Moscow share some of
the United States’ concerns regarding North Korea, and both urged North Korea
not to go ahead with the rocket launch, and expressed regret after the fact.

Nonetheless, while Chinese and
Russian officials generally agree that the world would be better if North Korea
didn’t have nuclear-armed long-range missiles, they differ with Western
governments on the tactics to pursue to avoid such an adverse outcome. At the
end of the day, Chinese and Russian strategists consider DPRK missiles as
posing only an indirect threat, since they do not foresee any reason why the
DPRK would attack them.

Furthermore, they oppose strong
sanctions that could precipitate the DPRK regime’s collapse, which would likely
leave a failed state on their border. In fact, China and Russia remain more
concerned about the DPRK’s collapse than Pyongyang’s intransigence regarding
its nuclear and missile development programs.

Importantly, however, Chinese and
Russian policymakers increasingly worry that the DPRK’s actions will encourage
other countries — such as South Korea and Japan — to pursue their own offensive
and defensive strategic weapons, especially nuclear weapons, ballistic
missiles, and ballistic missile defense, which Tokyo, Seoul and perhaps other
countries could someday use against China or Russia.

Another consideration affecting
U.S. policy toward the DPRK nuclear issue is that American policymakers also do
not want U.S. allies in the Pacific to perceive Washington as neglecting their
security interests. The DPRK’s development of nuclear weapons and its improving
ballistic missile capability has already affected East Asian regional security
in many dimensions, including by calling into question U.S. security guarantees
to Japan and South Korea.

This is, at least in part, why
Japanese officials complain to their U.S. counterparts that the United States
and the other parties to the Six-Party Talks do not pay sufficient attention to
the DPRK’s missile capabilities. Japanese security experts also worry that
American officials would accept a deal that would constrain DPRK long-range
missile activities but not similarly restrict North Korean missiles having a
shorter range (i.e., those that could reach Japan but not North America). Yet,
Japanese leaders have not offered new initiatives to address these issues or
break the current stalemate in the talks, which have remained in abeyance since
2009.

Another issue of concern to Japan
and other U.S. allies, as well as Washington itself, is the credibility of
Washington’s extended nuclear deterrence guarantees in East Asia. Although
extended nuclear deterrence is ironically most effective at dissuading a
government from launching a large-scale war against a covered country, it is
much less effective at averting lower-level provocations. As Abe Denmark
pointed out in December 2011, “North Korea has conducted 221 attacks against
the South since 1953, an average of almost four attacks per year.” Furthermore,
the trend is not in the ROK’s favor, with North Korea’s 2010 incidents marking
a major escalation from previous years.

As a result, ROK military leaders
now emphasize in their declaratory doctrine the need for a prompt and vigorous
response to future DPRK provocations. South Koreans, alone and in cooperation
with the U.S. military, have also been engaged in an expanded series of
exercises during the past year. Although Chinese and Russian officials have
often opposed these as provocative, the North Koreans normally have acted
quietly and cautiously while the exercises are taking place, although their
first nuclear test in 2006 came shortly after the U.S.-ROK concluded their
annual Ulchi Focus Lens (UFL) exercise.

Most recently, the ROK has
announced the acquisition of new, longer range ballistic and cruise missiles.
This acquisition was opposed by Beijing and not entirely welcome in Washington
either. What might happen if the ROK actually uses all this firepower in
response to a low-level DPRK provocation is anybody’s guess. A few Americans
and South Koreans have called on the United States to return tactical nuclear
weapons to the South, or even for the ROK to develop its own small nuclear
arsenal, but most people, including this author, consider such a move
counterproductive.

The main problem confronting the
United States is that while North Korean leaders believe they need nuclear
weapons to deter U.S. threats, the U.S. view is that enduring peace on the
Korean peninsula requires that it be free of nuclear weapons. Consequently,
Washington has said it is prepared to work with the other parties to compensate
the DPRK for any steps it took towards ending its nuclear weapons and missile
programs, including by supplying economic assistance and security guarantees.
But since Pyongyang has continued its wayward ways, most recently by launching
a long-range missile, the United States and its allies have shunned the DPRK
diplomatically and punished it with additional unilateral and multilateral
sanctions. Representatives of the current U.S. administration, like its
predecessors, have also affirmed a readiness to curtail North Korean nuclear
threats by means other than negotiations, including through increased sanctions,
strengthening allied defenses in the East Asian region, and increasing U.S. and
multinational interdiction efforts.

The Obama administration remains
committed to the “action for action” approach that combines the use of positive
and negative incentives with a willingness to engage the DPRK within the
multilateral context of the Six-Party Talks. Under its policy of “strategic
patience,” the Obama administration has demanded that the DPRK give some
concrete indication, before resuming the Six-Party Talks, that the DPRK would
make progress toward ending its nuclear weapons program. The Obama
administration’s “strategic patience” policy does complement South Korea’s by
joining with Seoul in refusing to resume direct negotiations with the DPRK
until it clearly changes its policies.

But this policy of patiently
waiting for verifiable changes in DPRK policies possesses several risks. First,
it provides North Koreans with additional time to refine their nuclear and
missile programs. Second, the current stalemate is inherently unstable. The
DPRK could at any time resume testing its nuclear weapons and long-range
ballistic missiles, likely to confirm and support its quest for a reliable
nuclear deterrent but also possibly out of simple frustration about being
ignored. The strategy also risks allowing a minor incident to escalate through
the ROK’s “proactive deterrence” policy, which calls for responding immediately
and disproportionately to any DPRK military provocations to deter further
aggression.

The worst scenario would see the
DPRK leadership, thinking that their nuclear and missile arsenals would protect
them by deterring potential counterattacks, launching another provocation only
to trigger the massive and prompt response posited in the new ROK strategy. The
DPRK might respond by detonating a nuclear device in order to shock the ROK and
its foreign allies into de-escalating the crisis. Or it might simply bombard
Seoul and its environs with the enormous number of artillery systems that the
DPRK has amassed in the border region.

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